Biography
by Runt the Brave
Summary: "I love biographies." "Oh very you, always a death at the end." "You need a good death. Without death, there'd only be comedies!"


**A/N: I was quoting Doctor Who in the author's note of one of my other stories and this idea hit me. It's short, angsty and I liked writing it. Please enjoy.**

**Disclaimer: I am not BBC, Steven Moffat or any of those people who happen to own Doctor Who**

**Spoilers: spaced about, no big ones, mostly just for Silence in the Library and a little for Forest of the Dead, if you stretch it.**

Biography

"_I love biographies."_

"_Oh yeah, very you. Always a death at the end."_

"_You need a good death. Without death there'd only be comedies."_

_~ the Doctor and Donna Noble, Silence in the Library_

Biography: a written account of another person's life.

He had wondered for several years now who would write his biography.

Some people wrote them themselves. Autobiographies, meaning a written account about oneself. Personally, he believed that no one should write their autobiography until after they died, because you needed a good death. Of course, that would eliminate the purpose for an autobiography unless, of course, you were capable of corporal life after death.

Once, he started writing it himself, only to wonder where to begin, how to portray it all. Nine hundred years of lessons and experienced would have to be packed into to a set of encyclopedias, not just a book. And so, as the time in his personal hourglass dripped slowly away, his interest in the subject waxed and waned. The various books he wrote piled on top of each other, always stuffed in the same old corner of the TARDIS library. It was impossible, one of the few things he couldn't do, to write the story of himself. So no autobiographies.

Maybe K9 could pull something together? He often heard the dog beeping _affirmative_ in his mind, but somehow, the picture of the dog writing a biography just didn't come. For one, K9 had never learned how to use a pencil. We-ell, he supposed to dog could turn out a electronic copy of some story, feed it into a computer and have it turn out as text, but, he was, very simply, a dog. Who wanted a dog to write their biographies? Sometimes, he'd close his eyes and imagine what the little tin dog would write, but most of the time he ended just laughing over some humorous memory. Who knew tin dogs could catch laryngitis?

Companions came and went, like they always did, until he hit one moment in time when his life was finally starting to have some linear sense, which was actually nice for a chance, but that was before she threw it all away. She and that little blue book of hers. He never concerned the fact that he left the book on top of a stack of biographies. Donna never mentioned it, seeing as she barely knew what that book could be. A few weeks after their trip to the Library, he stood in the TARDIS library, picturing the outside of the forbidden blue book and wondering, just wondering.

Time passed and Donna fell away like his other companions. He really did have a very, very bad track record with humans. They either ended up dead, emotional crippled, or stuck somewhere else, their lives altered forever. Time passed and he barely thought about the biography, no more than normal. Time passed and he regenerated, changing into someone else. But still, that nagging little questions about his biography plagued at the back of his mind. He never mentioned it, not to anyone, because it seemed such an arbitrary ideal. Martha always talked about how he never asked for thanks in saving the world, so why would he want this biography?

Sometimes, the Doctor's least favorite puzzle was his own mind.

He traveled across the stars and back. She showed up again, sometimes with the blue book, sometimes without it. Nothing ever happened in the right order with her. Nothing was supposed to make sense around her. River Song was an enigma, a puzzle for the ages. And he loved her for it. They barely traveled together, seeing as she used his TARDIS more as a taxicab than a RV. He had taught her to fly the TARDIS after the incident involving one of her several hundred ex-boyfriends, a black cat, and some silly string. It had been entirely her fault, of course.

Time flowed around the two of them. He never forgot the fact that she died, nor the fact that she still refused to let him see inside that little blue book. Turns out she stole the book from his own library, but he never demanded it back. If there was one thing that River Song should never be without, it was her little blue book. Time flowed around the two of them, welding them together for their own little eternity. They would spend hours talking, never spending too much time on any one subject. He told her of this and that, the adventures he had had and the things he learned. All the awful things he had seen. She spoke of her trials and her pain, of the darkness in her past. She spoke of jail and murder. All the awful things she had done.

They loved each other. Some days with her were brilliant, full of cheer and fun and laughter and joy. They ran together, without a care in the universe. Some days, however, were painful; her burden of pain and guilt too much for her own shoulders to bare. He tried to help her, he tried with all his hearts, and he thought that he succeeded. In many ways, he hated his pseudonym, because he never felt like someone who healed, only someone who broke.

But River... River he healed.

They had their own eternity together. Forever in a day. Forever in a year. Forever in eternity. They were time travelers, they had all the time in the world. Even though, she did technically die a few years into their traveling together... One day, the little blue book was left lying open on her kitchen table_._ At the time, he thought little of it, simply closing the book. He refused to look ahead, he refused to cheat in solving his own enigma. Joy overflowed through both of them, until the dark day when she picked up her gun again. He would have died had she not murdered the approaching alien. But as her finger touched the trigger, her good health shattered into a million pieces. Again and again she killed, snuffing out the most valuable thing in the universe, life.

And so she began to run.

She ran from him, stealing her own airship and racing away from a planet they were investigating. He tried to follow her, but it was no good. She had even left the little blue book in her room. She ran from herself, never looking back, never stopping or slowly. The Doctor caught up to her, once, maybe twice, but she refused to acknowledge him because that would mean acknowledging the pain. His hearts slowly began to shatter.

He found her one day, tucked away in a far corner of the TARDIS. Tears streaked down her face and she clutched the blue book like it was her life line. Her eyes were hollow and black, filled with anger and rage and grief and disbelief and overwhelming sadness. She would not let him comfort her in anyway, and she would not tell him why. She stayed in her corner and scribbled furiously in her own little blue book. As he sat and watched her, he knew what the blue book was. His biography. And all biographies have a death at the end. His enigma started to make a little sense.

Hours later, she closed the blue book and placed it on the floor. She looked at him, the only thing left in her lifeless eyes was pain. He gathered her to him, rocking her back and forth. She acted like a small child, drawing what comfort she could from his embrace. They did not speak, but they stayed together for a few days, always within arms length should River break down again. Her eyes never recovered. They were lifeless and dull, even when she laughed; and she barely laughed anymore.

After awhile, she left. He didn't see her again, not for weeks of his personal time period. He searched for her, but it was harder even then when she was running from him. She was hiding from him. He met a younger version of her, and she traveled with him for a few days. They were standing in a forest when she killed him. There was no pop or circumstance. At the time, she had been aiming for a tree as target practice. He simply... got in the way. But it shattered her.

It tore her in two.

When she died, the little blue book remained forever on top of a stack of biographies. Occasionally, the wind would blow through the spires of the Library, unchecked by the hordes of vashta nerada. The wind eventually flipped the blue biography open to the very last page. Four words had been splashed across the last page. The page was blotched and stained with tears. Biographies often end in deaths. Everything ends, even the wonders of the little blue book. Everything ends, even the life of the most amazing man who ever lived. Everything ends; love, joy, sorrow, grief. Because in the end, you need a good death.

Everything ends...

"_and so he died_."


End file.
